Vanita Gupta and Karen Kaiser Join Knight Institute Board

Vanita Gupta and Karen Kaiser Join Knight Institute Board

NEW YORK – The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University today announced that Vanita Gupta, who directs the Center for Law and Public Trust at New York University and previously served as Associate Attorney General of the United States, and Karen Kaiser, who serves as director and legal advisor at the Clooney Foundation for Justice and formerly served as General Counsel to the Associated Press, will join the Institute’s board.   “I’m delighted to welcome Vanita Gupta and Karen Kaiser to the board as the Knight Institute enters its second decade,” said Lee C. Bollinger, president emeritus (ex officio) of Columbia University and chair of the Knight Institute’s board of directors. “Over the past ten years, the Institute has made important contributions to the defense of freedom of speech and the press. Those freedoms now face renewed and significant challenges, and Karen and Vanita will strengthen the board at a critical moment for our work.”  The Knight Institute was established by Columbia University and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in 2016 to defend the freedoms of speech and the press in the digital age through strategic litigation, research, policy advocacy and public education. The Institute promotes a system of free expression that is open and inclusive, broadens and elevates public discourse, and that fosters creativity, accountability, and effective self-government. “Karen Kaiser has spent her career protecting the people who report the news, and Vanita Gupta has spent hers making sure the law protects everyone equally,” said Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute’s executive director. “They are talented lawyers and inspiring leaders, and I’m delighted that the Institute will have the benefit of their experience and judgment.”  Vanita Gupta is director of the Center for Law and Public Trust and a distinguished scholar in residence at NYU School of Law. From 2021 to 2024, she served as U.S. associate attorney general, becoming the first civil rights lawyer to hold one of the Justice Department’s top three leadership positions. Gupta previously served as president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and led the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division during the Obama administration. Earlier, she was deputy legal director and director of the Center for Justice at the ACLU and an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, where she led the effort to overturn the wrongful drug convictions of 38 people in Tulia, Texas.  Karen Kaiser is director and legal advisor at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, where she works on harnessing AI to expand access to justice for women and journalists at risk. She previously spent 12 years as senior vice president, general counsel, and chief compliance officer at the Associated Press, where she oversaw the news organization’s global legal operations and worked on issues including press freedom, journalist safety, and AI governance. Kaiser was instrumental in reforms to U.S. Department of Justice guidelines governing subpoenas of members of the press in 2014 and 2022 and served on the DOJ News Media Task Force for more than a decade. She is chair of the International Bar Association Media Law Committee and serves on the steering committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.  In addition to Bollinger, Gupta, and Kaiser, the Institute’s board includes Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, Knight Foundation President & CEO (ex officio); Daniel Abebe, Dean and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law at Columbia Law School; Jelani Cobb, Dean and Henry R. Luce Professor of Journalism, Columbia Journalism School; Nicholas Lemann, Dean Emeritus at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism; Gerald Rosberg, former Senior Executive Vice President at Columbia; and Deb Roy, Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT.  For more information, contact: Lorraine Kenny, lorraine.kenny@knightcolumbia.org.